All of Us Need Love
On the variety of how we hold pain — and the one thing we all hold in common.
A list poem. People come in many shapes. The thing under the shapes is mostly the same.
Some will let it go
Some will let it show
Others will stay silent
Even when they know
Some will sit and cry
While others will deny
Some of us will choose
Even when not knowing why
Some will make a path
While some expect it all
Some will always stay with you
Until they see you fall
Some need to be thought of
Some of us need respect
But all of us need connection
And all of us need love
You can sort people endlessly by how they grieve, how they show up, how they handle the hard parts. The sorting is interesting. The bottom line isn’t sortable: all of us need connection. All of us need love. That’s it. That’s the whole list, finally.
— JTC